APRSdata.TXT APRSdata Sumary ========================================================================== Document version: DB1 Document dated: 02 Jul 2002 (previous ver was 12 Mar 2002) Author(s): Bob Bruninga, WB4APR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ver DB0: * Keps file now defaults to "amateur.txt" for easy entry Ver DA1: * Map and Satellites will not overwrite new incoming msgs * DATA Base now responds to QUERY and ?, not just QDOS * INPUT-KEPS now only takes NASA 2-line files for simplicity Other Version HISTORY notes are at the end of this file. APRSdata is a copy of APRSdos with additional features for serving up "Tiny-Web-Pages" to Kenwood Mobiles and HT's in your area. The initial idea was to serve up Satellite data, but then it was trivial to add any other position related databases as well. Here are the default Databases: * Puts any Satellites in view up as Objects automatically. Each sat shows its up and downlink frequencies and present doppler. Below 4 degrees, the uplink frequency is replaced with the elevation. * Can give VOICE alerts to D700 users of satellites in view * Maintains an 80 min sat schedule in users DX lists every 10 mins * Responds with a packet of info for any of these special Query Commands: HELP - Responds with a list of commands to mobile's DX LIST DIGIS,IGATE,WX - Nearest DIGI,WX or Igate heard on the air as an OBJECT SATS - Updates the SAT SKED in the mobile user's DX LIST * Responds to these Queries with the closest object in the XXX.POS: ATV,CLUB,NET,FD - ATV repeaters, CLUBS, on-air nets or FD sites Crashes - Known crash sites to avoid errors during SAR NWR, NWS - NOAA WX Radio & Freq, or Natl Wx Service Site Voice - Nearest Voice repeater of sigificance DX - Nearest DX cluster HOSP, FD - Nearest Hospital or Field Day Site RS - Nearest Radio Shack or Radio Store PARK,CAMP - Nearest PARK (includes Camps) or just CAMPgrounds XXXX - Nearest Object in any other POS\XXXX.POS file OTHER - WIll list these others files (NOT YET IMPLEMENTED) SATELLITE SETUP: Please limit this capability to only those satellties that are workable with the mobile or HT so that you do not clutter up 144.39 with data of little use to anyone. At this date, I recommend ISS, UO-14, UO-22, AO-27, AO-40, PCsat and Sapphire. To enable these satellite alerts and skeds, select the POSITIONS list and move the cursor down to the satellites to be announced when they come in view. Hit ENTER to select the satellite and then "U" for uplink in the usual fashion to mark an object for uplink. If the satellite is above the horizon, then it will become yellow and uplinked immediately. If, as is more likely, it is not in view, it will be marked as a killed object as dark blue for subsequent uplink later when it does come into view. HF SATELLITES: Since the Mode-A RS birds can be heard on a mobile HF rig, you can also just mark the satellite on the P-LIST for "L" to be sure it is included in the periodic DX LIST satellite schedule, but it will not be announced as an object to minimize QRM. The RS birds are in higher orbits and in view for up to 20 minutes or more at a time and it is felt that one-minute objects would be too much for the local net. Yet HF users still will see its AOS in their DX lists. LEO SATELLITE TIMING: Satellites to be uplinked on 144.39 are transmitted when they pass above 1 deg and then about 80 seconds later using the normal decay rate. But this jump to 160 seconds trips the selection process so that the next time through the satellite list, in 10 to 20 seconds, it will again be rescheduled for uplink and the process repeats. AO40 and AO10 TIMING: For the eliptical satellites, the same rule applies, but the delay between the transmissions is about 10 minutes. Due to the large number of modes, the UPLINK frequency is not shown but is replaced with an elevation angle when it is above 1 deg. Otherwise the center of the analog UHF passband is shown. Also, in the DXlist schedules, these satellites are only shown as " is UP" instead of an AOS time. SATELLITE SCHEDULES: Once every 10 minutes, a single Satellite schedule will be transmitted as a DX spot. This will be captured on everyone's DX LIST and can show as many as 4 satellites. To force the transmission of a new schedule, hit NEXT-SCHED. SImilarly, any user can request a satellite schedule with a QUERY:?SATS command. New in version DA0, satellites can be marked with a "L" for inclusion in the DX LIST separately without also forcing them as objects. VOICE ANNOUNCEMENTS on the D700: To enable a voice announcement to alert anyone with a D700 and voice chip, simply select that station in the POSITION list and select the VOICE option with the "V" command. Once a minute (I will reduce this later when I get around to it) it will send out a message that will speak "U-O-1-4 LOW" if the satellite is betwwen 5 and 19 degrees. "Medium" if it is 20 to 29 deg and "High" if it is above 30 deg. To allow users to request this data without prior action by the SYSOP, APRSdata will send voice announcements to any D700 that has his CUSTOM-1 comment set. This does add substantial message traffic to the channel load, so users should not do this except when really needed. LOCATION: APRSdata uses the position of the mobile for its search. If the mobile wants to request the nearest Object closest to some other location, then he should temporarily change his posit to that location. If a Mobile has not transmitted a posit or it is 0000/0000, then APRSdata responds with a message that no data is available without knowing the stations location. SYSOP FUNCTIONS: While serving as this community resource for others, APRSdata still is usable by the local operator as a normal APRSdos program and assumes the operator is fully familiar with APRSdos. For more indepth discussion of my overall APRS/SATELLITE concept, see ASTARS.TXT or APRStk.TXT or better go to my WEB page to see the latest. http://www.ew usna.edu/~bruninga/astars.html Just let APRSdata run on a PC in the corner. See the SETUP in the final section below for initial set up. In addition to the normal APRSdos displays for the local operator, APRSdata also: * Predicts satellite pases over the next 80 mins and displays the times and peak elevations graphically. (Use NEXT and/or FILE-FAST commands) It will do this EVERY time you redraw the map if you set ALT-S-OTHER to REDRAW. Or otherwise, on a slow PC, leave REDRAW OFF, and you can do it manually. In any case, to serve users, it will do it automatically after your keyboard has been inactive for 10 minutes. * Displays the names, Freqs and Modes of all amateur satellites. Hit the LIST-FREQS command. * Displays the basic Keplarian Elements for easy comparison with new or old elements. Hit the LIST-KEPS command. * Displays locations of satellites on the map as objects. * Shows the azimuth and elevation to any satellite selected. * Shows a set of elevation rings showing the range to satellites above 0, 5, 20 and 40 degrees from your location. Note that this is dependent on satellite altitude and defaults to 800 km. To change this use INPUT-EL-RINGS. * Won't let you miss a pass. If you are zoomed in below a range to see current satellites in view, it will paint the map the color of the current maximum elevation of any pass in progress. * Uplinks these satellite objects to your local APRS LAN to inform others. To do this select them with UPLINK command on the P-List. APRSdata will transmit them once per minute when in view, and then kills them once below -2 deg. Every 10 minutes when the SCHEDULE is drawn automaticaly due to no-operator present, then APRSdata will also send out a DX SPOT containing all passes in the next 80 minutes. If there is an operator present, you can do this at any time with the NEXT-SKED command. Or users can request it with the Q-SATS message. * See how many people query your data base on the QUERY line on the HEARD log. * Use CONTROLS-FILTERS-IGNORE to ignore all off screen stations. This helps you control how rapidly your LISTS fill up with local traffic. * WX-RawCnvrt command now causes APRSdata to retransmit Raw UII wx packets as APRS formatted packets so that D7/D700 users can display them. * NEXT "-" command displays PREVIOUS 2 hours of passes so you can see what satellites you just missed. HOW THIS WAS IMPLEMENTED: Here is what I had to do to make this work: 1) Queries are sent as Messages * You send the message to "QDOS, QUERY or ?" ... * In the message you send ?XXXXX, Where XXXXX is the data you want. 2) The kenwoods do not recognize the concise "ITEM" format which was designed for this application. THus, I have to use the more verbose OBJECT format 3) APRSdos does not accept the ACK from APRSdata. THus, APRSdos users that request data must remember to ERASE the message request once the data comes in. (Until I get a new modified APRSdos out there) 4) The OLD D7's will not recognize a DX-SPot (the Sat Schedule) unless it is to a NON-APRS TO-CALL. Thus, these packets are sent to RESORC. And this takes a lot of overhead for APRSdos to switch back and forth with the UNPROTO command. Some TNC's dont do this well. SO each SYSOP should test with a D7 on the air to see if his TNC is putting in the UNPROTO RESORC VIA ..... correctly. 5) The new COMPRESSED format for objects will not work with old D7's So APRSdata forces NORMAL format. DATABASE SETUP: APRSDATA should default your station to use the INFOSERVER ICON (/?). APRSdata uses all of the POS\*.POS data files that you already have. To see these in any version of APRSdos, just hit the MAPS-OVERLAYS commands. These POS\*.POS files are distributed with each of the major APRSdos Map distributions. To differentiate them and match them to the area the users is in, each file uses a .XXX extension that matches the MAPLIST extension for that area. Thus if you are in the .EAS east coast distribution, then your Radio Shack file should be named POS\RSHACKS.EAS. You MUST rename all of these to the appropriate new file name conventions shown below. Be sure you have loaded the Emaps,Wmaps,Mmaps, SEmaps,NWmaps or Cmaps.ZIP file for your area. But since APRSdata will only be serving your local area, and we need to make the file names short and recognizible, and different from the national .XXX distribution files, you need to COPY your old local files to these .POS files. APRSdata will only use .POS files for its QUERY responses: RS.POS (was RSHACKS.XXX) NWS.POS (Was NWSPOSNS.POS) NWR.POS (Was NWR.XXX) CRASH.POS (Was CRASHES.XXX) ZIP.POS (Was ZIP.XXX but distributed separately in ZIPCODES.ZIP) ATV.POS (Was ATV.POS) VOICE.POS (Was Voice.xxx) DX.POS A new file we are working on CLUB.POS My local area file is included as a sample NET.POS My local area file is indluded as a sample HOSP.POS My local area file is included as a sample PARK.POS My local area file is included as a sample *** IMPORTANT*** Be sure to keep a copy of ALL of your *.POS files under a DIFFERENT EXTENSION, say *.MY, so that if you download a NEW copy of APRSDATA then my SAMPLE files will overwrite your .POS files and you will need to RE-COPY yours back.. You can build any local file you want. Such as FOOD or GAS, etc. Just use the format of these files and the NAME of the file will be its Query Name. For each such file you use, send me the NAME of it, so we can work up a common list of expected data bases... The DIGI,IGATE and WX data does not come from POS\*.POS files, but from what you have heard on the air. The advantage of this is for stand-alone WX stations that don't normally show on the Kenwoods. But here, APRSdata converts their raw-PEET-format to standard APRS format for display on the radios. Now, since you do not want DX stations to overwrite local stations, APRSdata comes configured with CONTROLS-FILTERS-LIMIT set to 20 to try to limit DX stations from entering your P-List and overwriting locals. (CFL=20 means it will ignore packets with DIGI Fields longer than 20 characters). COORDINATION: It is important to coordinate the location, paths and coverage of each APRSdata station. Here is what you can do: 1) On D-PAGE, do a JUST-APRDA to find others using APRSdata 2) Set your OUTGOING UNPROTO path to the minimum for your intended area 3) Set your C-F-L filter to a small enough value to not accept Queries from beyond this area. This is not easy to do with WIDEn-N, but will work in other areas. APRSDATA FILE STRUCTURE: APRSDOS has many built-in files. The .POS files are single files that contain nationwide data. All other files are broken down to smaller "regional" files that have the same extension as the regional APRS map distribution files. For example, all EAST coast files are .EAS. TO make these same categories work for users using the USA distribution, the default .APR extension is used. These .APR files are only "representative" selectoins and are NOT complete. Once the user zooms into the regional MAPLIST, then it will use the specific file for that region... DATA M-OVRLY OLD FILE ADATA For the default USA distribution FILES MENU EXTENSION USES these .APR files are used -------- ------- --------- ----- -------------------------------- ATV A .POS CRASHES C .XXX .APR 10% of them DIGIS D .POS FREQS F .POS GATES G .POS NWSPOSNS N .POS RSHACKS R .XXX .APR 10% of them STORES S .POS VOICE V .XXX .APR NWR N .XXX .APR 25% of them ZIPCODES Z .XXX .APR incomplete OTHER.....O Prompts for file name The .APR files are selected samples so that when using the USA (.APR) distribution, something shows up. Once the user selects one of the regional MAPLIST.XXX, then the correct .XXX file for his area will be used. VERSION HISTORY: ---------------- Ver DB1: Just added AO-7 to LEO.ORB and changed PHG to 50% for mobiles Ver DB0: Assumes default KEPS file name of "AMATEUR.TXT" for easy use Ver DA1: Was in place Sept 2001 to 12 Mar and was a restart of the version numbering scheme. But on the next one, I went to DB0 Ver DA0: The RS Mode-A birds can be heard on a mobile HF rig. So I added the capability to mark a satelite for inclusion on the every 10 minute DX LIST posting without then also transmitting it as an object. This saves QRM but still alerts those who need it. Ver DA9: Added special processing for AO40 and other Eliptical Sats Ver DA8: Added VOICE announcements of Satellite altitude to mobile D700 users with the voice chip. Ver DA7: Minor tweak to appearance of DX list STATUS to not split "your". Added CONTROLS-FILTERS-IGNORE to ignore all off screen stations. LIST-KEPS now shows current Julian day to see how old are keps. Ver DA6: 1) WX Menu RawCnvrt command causes APRSdata to retransmit RawUII wx packets as APRS formatted packets so that D7/D700 users can display them. 2) Wont XMIT Sat objects or a SCHEDULE if MYPOS is 0. 3) NEXT "-" displays PREVIOUS 2 hours of passes so you can see what satellites you just missed. 4) Fixed bug so that if another stations is running APRSdata, his OBJECTS wont cancel yours.